Pete Cashmore & ‘Ambient Social’ – you are bringing my dreams alive!
I was thinking recently about applications that solve problems or are fun in today’s marketing environments, especially those that make the most of mobile, social media and where you are, .
My mind wandered, remembering the award I won back in February 2009. It was a finalist place for in AA GeoSmart’s Location Innovation Awards for ‘Instant Meet-Up’
Lo and behold, just this weekend, I discovered Mashable’s Pete Cashmore and his ‘Ambient Social’ YouTube video of March 13,2012, Pete is interviewed about the ‘Next Big Thing’ at SXSW, SXSW being the ultimate showcase of cool tech innovation.
Pete explains that the Ambient Social applications are designed to help find or communicate with friends, based on location and sometimes interests.
To my surprise this supposedly ‘new breed’ of emerging platform is the very innovation I conceptualised in January 2009 and won an award for. Back then we had no name for it. Until now I thought I was the only one with the concept! Maybe I was the first? So far I can’t find any others dabbling in it so early.
At SXSW there were 7 ambient social apps (platforms) show cased. David Teicher of AdAge.com explains each
Sonar
Ban.jo
Glancee
Highlight
Meeps
Roamz
Tracks
It is worth checking them out.
Meanwhile I’m onto the ‘let’s get rolling to the next stage’ of this innovation category. It will be amid client work, lecturing at Massey University in Social Networking for Business,and being part of a globally collaborative local marketing mastermind. We are a tight-knit & loyal group who test and share what is working from the field daily.
Life will become a round of funding, exploration, testing, research, iteration, marketing….and a bumpy ride between. That is entrepreneurship!
I’m a Social Media pioneer embracing local-social-mobile-interactive fusion plus the vision of Social Media bringing about massive change in leveraging whole-of-Business Social Media. Holistic works!
So the words Pete Cashmore – SXSW – Ambient Social or even #Ambient Social – Location – Innovation – apps – mobile – geolocation are very sweet to my ears (and search results)!
Jenny Wilmshurst – Social Media consultant, speaker, trainer